And Menessos let a small smile of his own slip through.
It’s a miracle. Then it hit me that they were being men again. Though Menessos had conceded the upper hand, both were waiting to see who would take the other’s hand.
I sighed exasperatedly.
Johnny grabbed Menessos’s hand.
“Three. Two. One. Three of us. Two male. One female. Three. Two. One. Three lives. Two sigils. One purpose. Three. Two. One.” I spoke softly, rhythmically. It was not a part of the spell, it was a reminder.
“Tres. Duo. Unus. Tres fieri unus. Sorsanimus,” Menessos said. “A piece of my soul I offer to each of you. I accept a piece of your soul in return.”
I repeated the words, then Johnny did.
“Vieo nexilis trini.”
It was the chant that would achieve our goal. That is, if we could convince a higher power to grant us this mutual intercession.
In ritual, the ability to focus is crucial. Right now, concentrating on my intention was as important as keeping my eyes on the road when driving one hundred miles per hour. Menessos knew this. In discussing the ritual with Johnny earlier, I had advised him it was imperative that he maintain his thoughts precisely on what we were doing, his willingness to participate, and to not let his thoughts go roaming.
Taking my own advice, I turned my inner “meditation switch” halfway and edged toward alpha. I imagined that through my voice I poured into the chant all the hopes I had for this spell. I poured in my need to block the Witches Council from rendering me Bindspoken and thwarting my destiny. I added my need to help Johnny unlock his power—which he would require as Domn Lup. And I included my need to save Menessos from the fairies . . . in about thirteen hours.
Around us, wind howled like a wolf. The sea salt marking the circle’s barrier was lifted into the air like dust particles, thrown into the fray to whirl and dance. I was the only one of the three of us facing the table now, and I saw the candle flames flickering, but not as harried by the rushing air as I would have expected. In fact, the flames sank low to the wicks and sporadically flashed high. Within the salt-strewn air at the circle’s edge, flashes of light erupted, coinciding with the candle bursts. Water rose up from the seashell, somehow expanding to become much more than a few drops. An umbrella of water formed over our heads, more water than the seashell actually held. Each flash of light created a ripple on the water’s surface.
Menessos was rapt, resolute. Seven’s words, “Love him as he loves you,” flickered through my mind, but I cast them out and checked on Johnny. He stared up, fascinated by the magic, but maintained the chant.
The power was present, but it was holding back. The chant had gone on too long for nothing to be happening. It had built, and was building no more.
Was one of them resisting? Was Johnny? I need this! For all of us! I pleaded.
That intangible hand reached through me, then, and turned my switch all the way to alpha.
I stood on the shore beside the willow tree, toes sinking into muck. Regardless of my state in the circle outside this meditation, I’d been delivered here naked.
Amenemhab was nowhere to be seen. Out of nowhere, the buckskin mustang raced by the tree at a full gallop and splashed into the lake, ruining the tranquil surface with splashes and ripples.
Oh no you don’t. My need was such that She must not get away. But the horse kept going.
I rushed into the water. The cold fluid tugged at my ankles, jerked at my knees, and my vivid memory of my last visit made me hesitate. A deeper emotional world.
She was swimming toward the white spearhead-shaped rock.
If I wanted this soul-sharing to work, I was going to have to earn it or prove it or something.
“Fine.”
Stomping forward, I leaped in and swam. I tried not to think about how far it was, how deep the lake might be, and what else might be in the water. Just keep swimming. I twisted into a backstroke. What a beautiful sky, like a web of stars over my head.
I was finding a sense of calm when the fin arose in the water beside me, just gliding smoothly alongside. If it had been a sharklike fin, I probably would have panicked. But this was spiky, like the dorsal on a walleye or a bass. Only this was a couple hundred times bigger.
Panic was trying to set in anyway.
The fin angled sharply away and headed out and around the lake. I flipped over to watch it go, just to assure myself that the lake creature wasn’t going after the horse, and that it was far, far away. My efforts to get to shore redoubled.
Across from me, on the narrow shore, the horse climbed from the water and shook Herself, then turned to me. She flicked Her tail and cantered around to the farside of the rock island.
Soon, my kicking feet brushed the pebbly offshore mix and I swam a few more strokes, then stood.
Muck between my toes wasn’t any more preferable on this side of the shore than on the other. I wrung out my hair and hurried along the shore the way the horse had gone. At the far end the stone jutted out into the sea. Hoof marks in the sand and pebbles became human footprints and entered a crevice in the stone. A doorway.
I approached the crevice and entered a cavern through it. Dim inner light showed the single pathway immediately split into three, each ending at the opening to a tunnel.
The crevice I had entered abruptly disappeared. Darkness surrounded me. It would not have been the way out anyway, it was the way deeper in. Deep enough to see my soul.
For a long minute, I stood, paralyzed. I hadn’t checked to see if there were damp footprints leading to any of the tunnels.
The dark closed in on me, suffocating me like obscurity and insignificance.
Cleansing breath in, doubt out.
Which way felt right?
Johnny still held my right hand, physically and outside of this meditation. And the right-hand path seemed to smell of cedar and sage. To the left, my senses found it cinnamon-and-coppery sweet, like blood. Menessos. So the center path . . . that must be my darkness.
My breath caught. At the Witches’ Ball, before I told the lucusi I was the Lustrata, I had a vision of Hecate. She had said, “You will find Me in the darkness. In your darkness. I am there. When you are ready to see your own soul . . . I’ll be waiting.”
As my fingers scrubbed along the chilled, damp wall, my toes slid cautiously forward. My progress was slow, but certain. A dozen paces in, my heart leaped as I felt no floor before me. Crouching to inspect, I felt nothing.
My first thought was to go back. But I knew that I could not choose between Menessos and Johnny. This was ridiculous. My path was not a dead end. Was not a path into darkness that led to a bottomless pit. It couldn’t be. I was the Lustrata. I was the bringer of light and justice. Light. Lustrata implied luster, a glowing sheen.
The mantle!
Calling my armor, calling on the light, that gentle gleam brightened the area around me. Little by little, a vast cavern appeared, a place giants—Titans—had carved into the foundation of the earth. I stood atop a grand stairway, each step five-feet high and thirty feet wide. Pillars stood like skyscrapers across the endless hall before me.
Crouching on the edge, I leaped down, step after step, and counted thirteen in all.
I lingered on the last. Stalactites dotted the ceiling between the enormous pillars, and their companion stalagmites disrupted the floor below. I searched to define a path. Feeling rather like a mouse in the Titan’s house, and wary that there might be a giant cat waiting to pounce, I peered into the distance before easing down.
My feet did not scrape over more stone, but struck wood.